This invention relates generally to protective headgear and, more specifically, to an impact absorbing, modular helmet that reduces damage to the user and other parties in a collision.
Protective headgear or helmets are worn by individuals to protect against head injuries. The use of helmets is often a mandatory requirement for driving bicycles and certain other motor vehicles, in high impact sports and in material handling areas and other potentially hazardous conditions.
While the use of safety helmets has been just that—to reduce or completely protect the user from any top, lateral and penetration impact to the user's head, recent events have shown that in high impact sports such as football, there has been an increasing use of the helmet as an initial contact point while tackling and blocking. Helmets are now often being used as a weapon (unintentionally or otherwise), to cause physical harm to opponents.
Commonly used protective headgear uses a hard outer casing with an impact-energy absorbing padding placed between the outer casing and the user's head. These hard casing helmets have several disadvantages. Such hard casing helmets actually permit the generation of a high-impact shock wave and then try to minimize its effects by the use of shock absorbing material. In sports such as baseball or cricket, where the helmet's primary purpose is to protect the head from the impact of a high velocity ball, the generation of such a high-impact shockwave (when a ball strikes the hard outer casing of the helmet) often results in the sudden movement of the head and neck in the direction of the ball and if the impact is high enough, it may lead to a concussion (striking of the brain matter to the skull with moderate force) or even a contusion (striking of the brain matter to the skull with high force) and may also lead to skull fracture.
Published research suggests that the human skull can fracture at decelerations as low as 225 G's and that concussions can occur at substantially lower decelerations. Research has shown that to offer maximum protection to the head, the rate of deceleration should be as low as possible.
Further, when such hard casing helmets are used by young school children while playing football, even though the impact force is low, considerable damage can happen, for instance, if a child's palm is caught between two helmets—at the time of collision.
Hence, it is the object of the present invention to overcome the abovementioned problems and create a novel and improved versatile, durable protective helmet